Of Pandas and People (hereafter Pandas) exemplifies the new creationism, which conceals its theological underpinnings better than the old Institute for Creation Research variety. Here, the Creator is cloaked in the euphemism "intelligent design." Like traditional creationist works, this book is laden with misstatements, misunderstandings, or incomplete descriptions of evolution, and the errors and omissions always favor "intelligent design." This review will describe only a few of its errors.

Alabama has just witnessed its most serious challenge to the integrity of science education since 1977. The State Textbook Committee voted on October 2, 1989 not to consider Of Pandas and People a textbook submitted by Haughton Publishing (Dallas, Texas) for inclusion on the recommended list for science text adoptions. One committee member, quoted in a newspaper interview, remarked that Pandas "is a strictly religious book."

The Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE) has been looking for two years or so (to our knowledge) for a publisher for a supplemental textbook for public school science classes. FTE’s goal is "to help restore freedom of choice to young people in the classroom, especially as it relates to matters of religion and conscience." Creationist-watchers will recognize this as a term of art for getting sectarian religious views into the classroom. Their supplementary book, originally entitled Biology and Origins, looks like it is going to finally get published.

Throughout the country, school boards are receiving offers of free or low-cost copies of the supplementary textbook, Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, by Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis. NCSE member Gary Bennett completed a comprehensive review of Pandas last fall to assist the Idaho Department of Education in its decision on whether to adopt the book as a recognized classroom resource. We present to RNCSE readers this abbreviated version of his review to accompany the annual bibliography by Frank Sonleitner listing recent scientific research that addresses the issues raised by Pandas.]

Immediately after the Kansas State Board of Education's August 1999 adoption of science content standards that opened the door to teaching creationism (RNCSE 1999; 19 [3]: 6, 19 [4]: 7-9), speculation began about which local schools would walk through that doorway. Within a few weeks, NCSE heard that in Pratt County, Kansas, local activists were pressing for adoption of the "intelligent design" textbook Of Pandas and People (RNCSE 1999; 19 [4]: 5).

In 1989, Kenyon and Davis published the first edition of Of Pandas and People as a supplementary biology text. In both the first and second editions, the authors claim that there is scientific evidence against evolution in a number of fields of scientific research. Since 1995, I have searched the scientific literature in those fields identified in Pandas as being problematic for evolution and reported on it in our members' publications. As expected, a number of questions in the sciences were unanswered at the time of the original publication of Pandas in 1989.

The book of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Origins by Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon is a high-school level textbook designed to supplement traditional biology texts. The authors repeatedly refer to intelligent design as an alternative theory to neodarwinian evolution (Davis & Kenyon 1993, pp. 25, 26, 41, 78, 85). Because the adoption of this book is being considered in some public schools, it is worth asking about the status of this theory: Is intelligent design theory actually used by scientists?